Hoard Review

Greed is good.

Look out, Lair: there's a new single-word dragon game on the PlayStation 3. Hoard is a PlayStation Network download that puts you in the wings of a fire-breathing demon terrorizing the countryside. Like all dragons you love treasure, and your one goal is to amass as much of it as you can before time runs out. By burning towns, castles and crops, you'll reveal piles of gold that can be carried back to your nest. Getting in your way, though, will be archers protecting towns, knights out to impress the princess, and other dragons (likely controlled by other players) that have their own hoards to build. It all makes for a great multiplayer game.

Standard games of Hoard last 10 minutes. The dragon with the biggest hoard at the end of that 10 minutes is the winner, or if you're playing by yourself, you can post your gold total to the Leaderboards and compare with other dragons around the world. There are a few variations on this basic premise like a cooperative game and a survival mode.

There isn't a lot of incentive to play Hoard by yourself, but it's a really good time when you get some friends together locally or compete online. Dragons can attack each other, steal gold from enemy hoards, and bully towns into sending them regular offerings. There are a few strategic options available to players: do you go on the offensive and interfere with other players or just mind your own business and try to claim as much gold as you can?

Every piece of gold you bring back to your lair will give you experience points that can be spent to level up your dragon and make it faster, stronger, and more powerful. There are a handful of stats you can choose to boost -- another strategic decision for you to make -- but no need to stress over it because your dragon will be back to Level 1 at the start of the next game.

There's nothing persistent about Hoard and no campaign to work through – everything you gain in a match will be gone the next game and there is no story to follow. It's designed for quick multiplayer skirmishes that are a whole helluva lot of fun, but as such, it's a somewhat limited experience. It's also not much to look at, with a pretty bland board game presentation that lacks personality. Some of the tiny text is pretty hard to read, too.

Up to four dragons compete to hoard the most treasure.

A nice touch: the title screen plays a replay of your last match behind the Hoard logo.

The Verdict

Hoard is a refreshing little multiplayer game that lets you be the bad guy for a change. Designed for short matches against other players it's a somewhat limited experience, but burninating the countryside is definitely a lot of fun.